'The Amazing Race 6' to air as part of 2004 CBS fall lineup

CBS revealed its 2004-2005 primetime schedule this morning, and there was both good news and bad news for fans of its Emmy Award-winning The Amazing Race program.

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The good news is that in a surprise move, CBS announced that The Amazing Race 6, which is scheduled to film this coming August, will appear on the network's fall lineup. The move will mark the first time since The Amazing Race 3 and the first time in two full years that the series will broadcast during the traditional television season (both TAR4 and the upcoming TAR5 have been broadcast as summer programming) -- a demonstration that the network appears to have strengthened its commitment to the critically-acclaimed but lacklusterly-rated series.

The bad news is that its turns out that the speculation of a recent Daily Variety report was correct. CBS has indeed decided to target the ratings Death Valley known as Saturday nights as a slot for an additional hour of reality programming, and unfortunately The Amazing Race 6 will serve as its guinea pig, airing at 9PM ET/PT on Saturday evenings. As with all the other shows on today's announced schedule, a premiere date has yet to be set.

The surprise announcement explains why the network quickly began The Amazing Race 6 casting calls in March. In order to be able to film the program in time for a fall premiere, CBS and the program's Jerry Bruckheimer production company had no choice but to film the show by late summer, which means that the casting and pre-production processes had to begin several months earlier. Similarly, the "quiet" casting is likely a result of CBS' intentions to keep its plans under wraps until its fall schedule was finalized and formally announced.